6 comments:

On point two: I've been reading a lot of books on genocide lately, and there is no consensus on the term at this point. Under Lemkin's definition (and he did create the term), there can be no argument against the Stalinist deportations being genocide: he specifically lists forced migration. Those who currently argue for an extremely restricted definition of genocide claim that the term is acquiring too broad a definition and is losing some of its force. People on the other side claim that the term is so powerful it should be applied to as many instances as possible, using Lemkin's original definition as a guide. There are people who hold positions at every point in between.

There is definitely value in conducting this sort of debate in journals, books, and other publications. The UN definition was a compromise, and furthermore was written by states that had all committed mass killings and deportations in the recent past. Turning up at a conference and raising an objection that the term is being misused isn't helpful, though. That almost strikes me as pedantic. That phenomenon is the main reason I stopped going to conferences.

Well I realize people disagree. But, the interpretation of intent as being only the main motivating goal of the action is rather tiresome. See Statiev's latest article, I can send it to you if you do not have it. He says it was not genocide even though the Soviet government knew that massive mortality was inevitable and the deportations were deliberate. He says this because their "goal" which is how he interprets intent was assimilation not death.

This pedantic exclusion of knowingly causing events through deliberate actions from the definition of intent is bizarre. It is certainly not reasonable since Anglo-American common law does not interpret criminal intent in such a narrow and subjective manner. Greenawalt has a good article on this. Let me know if you want me to send it to you.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm reading Bliev's book on the Caucasus wars, and he plays the same semantic games where he needs to to try to claim the Circassian genocide wasn't genocide. The actual discussions in the UN dealt with "intent" very briefly, and it's clear they meant a much broader sense than it has subsequently been interpreted. But genocide deniers often have nothing else to hang on to but word games.